Honest Ads Act Building Steam With Twitter Endorsement

Apr 18

Twitter “followed” Facebook’s lead today by backing the Honest Ads Act, which is the first significant regulation which would require transparency for political ads on the internet. Facebook, in particular, has been dealing with backlash from its Cambridge Analytica scandal, while also coming under fire for possibly impacting the 2016 election. Twitter’s “Russian bots” crisis leaves it in a similar situation with the public, and it is not a surprise that they are making it a point to rebuke unchecked divisive thoughts. This comes after Twitter announced that they would create a “transparency center” in October of 2017, which will show campaign advertising spending, the targeted demographics of specific ads, and the identities of organizations funding campaigns. Senator Mark Warner, of Virginia, put the ball in Google’s court, tweeting, “Huge step forward for the #HonestAds Act. I hope @Google will soon join @Facebook and @Twitter in supporting this bipartisan bill to bring accountability and transparency to online political ads.” An endorsement from Google would certainly continue to turn the tide in the direction of this Act being passed. Hopefully, Facebook and Twitter are not just giving lip service to rebuild public goodwill, and they are actually fully committed to accountability and transparency on their platforms.